TV Show Westerns - What are your favorites/least favorites and why?

For the craziest gun of the television west. The prize has to go with the crazy four-in-one gun featured on The Restless Gun! Talk about a schizophrenic gun! It didn't know what it was; a normal pistol, a long barreled pistol, a short barreled rifle - the most stupid combination, or a rifle built out of a pistol?



It did make the most fun western kids toy of all time!

 

Fred Allen out west!

 

Best TV Western ever? Evil Roy Slade (TV movie/failed pilot).

 

Speaking of Evil Roy Slade... here he comes over yonder!

 

Now here's where get into true cult territory

Evil Roy Slade began life as a sitcom pilot called Sheriff Who? This was the premise: badman Evil Roy Slade runs a western town, and every week the townspeople bring in somebody new to be sheriff, but ultimately Roy Slade drives them off. In the pilot, Astin played Slade and Dick Shawn played the new sheriff, "the fastest interior decorator in the West".

Sheriff Who? aired precisely once, on September 5, 1967. Many who saw it consider it one of the funniest things they've ever seen. Perhaps someday we'll all get a chance to see it.

But even curiouser, it turns out there was at least one other pilot/episode of Sheriff Who?, with Jerry Lewis as the guest sheriff.





Although the press release seems to imply Lewis was a guest on the Sept 5 broadcast of Sheriff Who?, those who saw it agree Shawn was the guest star, and Lewis was seen only in a brief preview for an episode which never aired.

 

The Rifleman when I was a kid. I even had one of the toy rifles. Kung Fu when I was grown up. I have all the DVDs and watch them regularly.



John K.

 

Thank you Dr. Pepper, this set looks incredible! I have a question. For this set, did they use real factory pressed silver DVDs or some type of DVD-R disc? There are some sellers doing this with public domain material and it can be very frustrating. It's especially common on eBay, so I prefer to purchase DVDs from other sites which have stricter rules against this practice.

 

I don't have this particular set, but it was released by Timeless (an formerly independent label that has since been acquired by Shout Factory). I have quite a few of Timeless' DVD sets, and they all use pressed silver DVDs, no DVD-Rs.

 

I have the set and I agree, but I'm not 100% sure. How can I tell?

 

I'm glad that Shout acquird Timeless as the one Item I bought from them was seasons 2 and 3 of Alias Smith and Jones and the transfers sucked but even worse the bit rate and encoding was worse (they also squeeze EIGHT episodes sometimes NINE onto a single double layered disc.)

Hopefully they will reissue these correctly 4 episodes per disc or 3.

 

The Restless Gun set is 8 one sided dvds containing 78 half hour shows, so that shouldn't be too bad? That's like about 4 hours per DVD.

 

The color of the discs. Pressed DVDs are silver, DVD-Rs are purple as a result of the specific organic dyes used in the recording layer. CDs are similar in that pressed ones are likewise silver, but there are several different types of organic dyes used in CD-Rs, so they can be either blue or green.

 

Thanks, I thought that was how you tell them apart. Then the Complete Restless Gun is definitely pressed and not DVD-R.

 

Al Bundy claimed that the unseen person the Rifleman was shooting in the intro was his wife.

 

Anyone remember a really awful series that I hope was aimed at kids? Pretty sure it was called The Oregon Trail. Star was Rod Taylor. It made Little house on the Prairie look like high art.

 

I think I saw a promo for it once. Rod Taylor knocked a guy out. So at least it had some fistfights, which puts it above that snoozeville chatfest soap Little House.

 

I saw an old episode of Cheyenne a few years ago, starring the wooden Clint Walker. I was amazed at how cheap the sets looked. There was a US army fort that I swear was made out of cardboard.

 

The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

I liked it better than the show that premiered in the slot after it, The X-Files.

 

One man's wooden is another man's Cooperesque (as in Gary). TV execs learned early on that the ideal leading man for a western series was ruggedly handsome, but soft-spoken and low-key (it all has something to do with a cool medium and all that). Fitting this paradigm were Walker, James Arness, Robert Horton, and Pernell Roberts.

 

Also fitting the profile was Chuck Connors of The Rifleman, soft-spoken and low-key as they come, except for a few seconds at the end of each episode, when he was a homicidal maniac. And of course the show's intro where he looks especially stoic as he's pumping about a dozen bullets into some poor unseen sap.

But Clint Walker was the stiff to end all stiffs, IMO. As Eddie Murphy once said (not about Walker) "I've seen better actin' from Fast Actin' Tinactin!"

 

All the Westerns I remembered watching while growing up:
The Real McCoys
The Rifleman
Branded
Guns Of Will Sonnet
Bonanza
Alias Smith and Jones
The Gun and the Pulpit (may have just been a TV-Movie)
Kung Fu
Wild Wild West
F Troop

 

Add Zorro

 

"A short-lived series in the golden days of television westerns,the series "Stagecoach West" was a superior entry that lasted more than one season,and produced 38 episodes,all in black and white. The series originally aired on ABC-TV from October 4, 1960 until June 27, 1961. This series was produced by the same people that brought you "The Rifleman" since it was produced by Four Star Television,the same company that also produced not only "The Rifleman",but was behind a glut of western programs like "Wanted: Dead or Alive", "Johnny Rango", "Law of the Plainsmen", "Zane Grey Theater" and so forth. Characters Luke Perry(Wayne Rogers),and his partner Simon Kane(Robert Bray)operated the Timberland Stage Line from Missouri to San Francisco. Simon's teenage son David "Davey" Kane(Richard Eyer)joins the two as they face stagecoach robbers,hostile Indians,murderers,inclement weather,and less sensational events they occurred. "Stagecoach West" was somewhat similar to NBC's "Wagon Train",since it was the network's answer to NBC's top-rated show.

The series during it's original airing was offered on Tuesday nights for the 1960-1961 season where it was opposite NBC's suspenseful "Thriller",hosted by Boris Karloff and CBS' musical-variety series "The Red Skelton Show". Although the stories were entertaining and well done from some of the great writing and direction that this series had. As for the episodes this series they were first rate within themselves. From the premiere episode "High Lonesome"(Episode 1),to "The Orphans" (Episode 34),"Three Wise Men"(Episode 11),"The Outcasts"(Episode 19), "Root of Evil"(Episode 21),"The Dead Don't Cry"(Episode 30),and the final episode of the series "The Marker"(Episode 38).

Notable guest stars that were on "Stagecoach West" were some of Hollywood's finest from James Best, to Robert Cabal, John Milford, Denver Pyle, Jack Elam, Don Dubbins, Joanna Barnes, Ruta Lee, John Dehner, Philip Carey, I. Stanford Jolley, Dan Haggerty, Ben Cooper, Beverly Garland, Cesar Romero, Virginia Grey, Warren Oates, Jack Lord, Robert Harland, Gigi Perreau, Darren McGavin,and James Coburn. Actor James Best appeared in two episodes of this series(Episodes 1 and 30).

After "Stagecoach West" ended in 1961,actors Wayne Rogers and Robert Bray went on to other television roles. Robert Bray later portrayed forest ranger Corey Stuart on Lassie from 1964 to 1969. Wayne Rogers became popular as "Trapper John" on the television series "M*A*S*H" from 1972 to 1975. Both shows were on CBS. As for child actor Richard Eyer he had starred in a number of films during the 1950's and 1960's including starring opposite Gary Cooper in the 1956 William Wyler flick "Friendly Persuasion". The series was canceled by ABC despite the high quality of the number of Westerns that dominated the television landscape during the 1960's."

 

+1 for Zorro! I was born in '53 in da Bronx, was raised watching all the old westerns and remain a big fan of the genre. Books, movies, TV...been a lifelong fan! Of all the B&W classic TV shows already mentioned I don't think I've seen Sugarfoot, Bat Masterson, The Rebel listed. When I lived in Georgia there was an all-western channel offered by Comcast that was a favorite. Tellyawhat, I started watching the Rifleman religiously every day, the show really held up! I miss that network! Another favorite I don't think I've seen mentioned is Stoney Burke; even as a youngster I could feel that the actors (Jack Elam, Jack Lord, & Bruce Dern) were kicking it up a notch!